The Day Larten Appeared In The Cafe
by timeandcirque
Summary: Lynsey always secretly hoped that vampires and vampaneze more than just a story...but when she finds herself having to make the choice to live the life she always dreamed of or turn her back, she realises some things aren't quite what she'd bargained for.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Most of the time I spent hoping for something different, something exciting, or as I put it, something better in life. It wasn't as if my life was at all bad, but I just found it dull. As much as Iwent along with my general day to day living, I clung to the desperate notion that one day something would change my life.

As far as I was concerned, I was doing my exams just to pass the time until a friend got bitten by a poisonous spider and I had to drop everything and become a vampire's assistant. I was the sort of person who, when out with friends, would point out every ginger guy they saw in the hope it was Mr Crepsley, or if I heard a noise late at night, would whisper "Larten?" y'know, just in case.

Of course I told my friends all of this, and we would joke about it all the time, them being fans of Cirque du Freak too and all, but I don't think they actually believed any of it. It was just a story to them, and I think if I had ever told them how strongly I believed it was true, they would have thought I was crazy.

Yet there was always this little voice at the back of my head saying "But the thing is Lynsey, you are crazy. When you are 40 years old and working in lidl, just think back to how you wasted half your life dreaming about imaginary ginger vampires and lame freak shows, and I bet you won't be impressed."

And because of that voice, when I did see a ginger guy, I would think "you're not going to see Mr Crepsley out in broad daylight now are you? And he doesn't even have the scar!", and when I heard a noise, I would find the source of it, and I would know it wasn't Larten at all, but the pipes, or a floorboard.

Except one day, I came across something that couldn't be rationally explained, and that voice in my head telling me there was no such thing as vampires and vampaneze was silenced forever.

We were in a café when we saw him. We don't normally go to cafés. That's my thing. Normally my friends want to go somewhere like McDonalds or Greggs, one of those big chain high street take away places, but I prefer a little home run café where the waitress is the owner and she lets you off if you're short of 5p because you're a regular. And just this once, my friend Marina decided to humour me, perhaps because I was feeling less cheapskatey than usual and decided to pay for lunch, so we sat down in Bradley's Diner for a cuppa and a bite to eat.

Marina got up to order, and she yelled over at me from by the counter "Oi Lynsey! What d'you want pet?" "Ive no idea!" I shouted back. "Tell me what there is!" All the various people inside the diner were starting to give us disapproving looks, so sighing, I got up to go and read the menu board. As I reached into my bag to take my purse out and pay, I realised I had left it at the table. "Eee ive forgot my purse, one sec i'll just go and get..." I tailed off as I realised somebody was now sitting at our table.

More specifically, a guy with hardly natural orange hair, and with a red shirt. Marina nudged me, as I knew she would. "Hey Lyndsey, I DARE you to go ask that guy if he's called Larten." "But what if he reads Darren Shan? He's going to think I am mad!" Laughing, I shook my head at her and set off in the direction of table 11. That's just something about me, I will go and talk to strangers, also, I never back down from a dare.

As I approached the table, I coughed, to get his attention. "Erm pet, you do know that me and my friend are sitting here right?", and before he could answer, I blurted out "Is your name Larten by any chance?" As soon as the words had left my mouth I realised how lame it actually sounded, and I started to come up with excuses for why I had said that, such as I had mistaken him for a celebrity, or he looked like a friend of my brother (not that I had a brother, or a sister for that matter!), but I never got a chance to use them, for what he actually said was "Yes it is."

My breath caught in my throat. "Larten Crepsley?" I couldn't think of anything else to say to be honest. He nodded briskly. Marina hovered nearby, looking uncertain. I could tell the type of thoughts running through her mind, for they were running through mine too. Was he joking? Should I presume he's a vampire? What should I say next? Luckily neither of us got the chance to potentially make a fool of ourselves, for his next words and actions left us with no doubts whatsoever about him.

He held out his hand for me to shake (oh how formal!), my eyes glanced down at the ten scars on his fingertips, but I quickly looked back up again as he said "Tell me, Lynsey. What do you and your comrade know of vampires and vampaneze?" I told myself to stay calm, and whispered "Well you're here, so apparently, too much." "Do not act clever with me, Lynsey, but yes, you are correct, you do know too much. I do not know why you know my name, or how you recognised me, but let me tell you this: In two days, I will be posing as a teacher at Ashworth School." I nodded uncertainly, unsure of where he was going with this.

"And you two, you will be posing as students of the school." "But Crepsley, we ARE students of the school? I don't get it?" asked Marina. "Oh, would you like me to rephrase that statement?" a smug smile spread across Mr Crepsley's face. "You will be posing as human students of the school, and you will not be in that category for much longer."

I froze. This was the moment I had anticipated all my life, yet it didn't seem to be as appealing as I had always thought. I had frequently feared I would be like Steve, that I would beg  
>Mr Crepsley to blood me, then I would have bad blood and he would reject me. I never once thought that I would be at all scared to abandon my human life. "Why us?" Marina broke<br>the silence that had fallen. "Maybe I thought you have the potential to be great assistants to me. Or maybe, it is your destiny." And with that, he left the café, leaving us no choice but to follow.

I say no choice, some people would have fled and never looked back, but me and Marina, we knew that we had to do this. I suppose him leaving was a sort of test, seeing whether we had the courage to go ahead with what we knew was the inevitable. And we did. Have the courage I mean. Ten minutes later we had well and truly left half our humanity behind. Mr Crepsley had blooded us, and things would never be the same again.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Monday Morning: The day when Mr Crepsley, my new mentor (by gum that sounds weird!) was going to be working undercover at my school. He said that he would inform Marina and I of his reasons for doing this 'all in good time', so all we had to do was to keep quiet about everything that had happened, and keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Oh! And not let on that we knew who this new teacher was. Personally, I though that was easier said than done.

As I stepped onto the 45 bus I took to school every day, wearing my red coat which was confiscated most days for not being 'regulation uniform', but that I wore regardless just because by wearing it I felt like I was Crepsley's assistant, I smiled to myself at the fact that I didn't need to wear the coat anymore, I was Crepsley's assistant red coat or no red coat.

But still, I kept it on. It was warm. I listened to the music off my phone for an hour while watching the world pass by out of the bus window, enjoying the calmness before the stress that would surely ensue as soon as I reached school. When I told people about how long my bus journey was every morning, they always felt sorry for me, but really I liked the bit of 'me' time to clear my head and listen to some music for a bit.

As per, I was first into school, and I decided to go for a walkabout in the corridors to work off some of this new energy that I had since the blooding. I thought about how in the Cirque du Freak books, Darren was stressed out about trying not to show off his new skills in sport, but luckily for me that was not an issue. I was actually the worst person at sport ever, well it wasn't so much that I was bad, more as if I just could never be bothered to try. The teachers at first used to be angry with me, but by now they had just given up on me altogether, which I found hilarious.

So all I had to do was just stand there and not do anything, and nobody would be at all suspicious. I turned a corner when I reached the science blocks, meaning to walk back the way I had come, as it had been a while and more of my classmates should have arrived by now, but I heard something that made me stop dead in my tracks. Behind the closed door of one of the labs, I could hear the distinct tones of two of my science teachers, Dr Dorian and Mrs Charity, conversing. This intrigued me, and so I crept closer, hoping for some interesting gossip which I could share later, (yes, I am quite nosy when it comes to school life!) but instead, I heard my name.

Or rather, I heard Mrs Charity firmly tell Dr Dorian to "Keep an eye on Lynsey Fox." Whoa. That wasn't normal, was it? As I stood poised at the door, they continued. "Yes, our new staff member is joining today, Mr Horston. And I will be watching his lesson this afternoon. He better watch out." Backing away silently, I ran back to my form room. I didn't need to hear any more to know that myself and Larten's cover was on the line. Was this why Mr Crepsley had to investigate our school?

I wished that he was less secretive. He had just blooded us, for Charna's sake, surely he owed us the truth of why, instead of just smirking and telling us "we knew too much." Why hadn't he blooded Amy then? She was just as big a fan as me and Marina? She obviously knew too much as well. "Ah well" I thought to myself "who knows how a vampire's mind works.", then I had to stop myself laughing as I realised that me of all people should know just that, as I was now one. I didn't have long to wait before Marina turned up. Normally, she was always in long past the bell, but I suppose she had forfeited her lie in to discuss our pressing matters.

"Lynsey!"

"Hey!" I jumped off the table which I had been sitting on and ran over to our lockers, as I did without fail every day. This was the point where I would normally shout "Did you see hollyoaks!" (well, not shout exactly, but I have the loudest voice ever, so to everyone else it sounds like shouting.), but instead I 'shouted' "Oh. Em. Gee. Crepsley."

"I know...I wonder where he is."

"Ten o clock." I had always wanted to describe where something is by using the time, like how they do in the army.

"No pet its half 8." Oh dear. Instead of trying to explain I simply pointed out of the window where Mr Crepsley himself was walking up the school path in his usual red attire. "Oh..."

"But listen, ive got something to tell you. Before, I was going for a little walk, cos y'know how I like a stroll, and I bumped into Mrs Charity and Mrs Dorian..."

"eeeww, Dorian."

"Yeah, ew. Anyway, no, I didn't bump into them, I decided to spy on them, because its my dream to be a spy and I thought it would be fun, I thought they'd be talking about Lychee's grades or something, but no."

"Is this story going anywhere..."

"Yes, you haven't heard it all yet! They were talking about me. Mrs Charity told Dorian to keep an eye on Lynsey Fox. I mean they even said my second name. And then, she said that she would be watching Mr Horston's lesson and he should watch out..."

"Omg."Marina interrupted me.

"What?"

"He's calling himself Mr Horston? That is sooo unoriginal. He always calls himself that." she laughed.

"Hey, that's the name of his dead cousin/best friend! Don't be mean to poor Larten!"

"Yeah still...He could be Mr Vur?"

"That sounds really lame. Anyway, WHY ARE YOU BEING SO CALM ABOUT THIS?"

"Why are you stressing out?"

"Because they said they were watching Mr Horston's lesson! And they had to keep an eye on me!"

"Relax pet! You probably just look ill or something! And teachers watch other teachers' lessons all the time, its no conspiracy."

I couldn't believe how lightly Marina was taking this. "But...but she said Mr Horston had to watch out!"

"You probably just imagined that Lynz. Anyway, gotta go. Bye!" She left, pausing only to give me the death touch sign, and I laughed in spite of the uneasy feeling I had. I knew that it had to be something more sinister than what Marina made it out to be, and I had not imagined the 'he better watch out', no matter what she said.

I only hoped Larten would believe me, for if not I would have a tough time convincing the both of them. But I had no time to dwell on this, for at that moment Amy sat down in the seat Marina had just left.

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